Thursday, July 02, 2009

Self-Help for the Wronged Woman

The New York Times' Maureen Dowd wrote a funny and instructive piece for women who find themselves married to adulterous male politicians (sure have been a lot of them lately; makes me wonder if female politicians are equally adulterous but smarter about not getting caught).

"High-powered women like Hillary, Elizabeth and Jenny who give up their careers to focus on their husbands’ ambitions feel doubly betrayed. But it’s not your husband’s fault if you sacrifice more for the relationship than he does. Like an investor in a down market, you took a risk without a guarantee it would pay off. If you make your husband your career and you lose your husband, you lose your career, too."

6 comments:

"makes me wonder if female politicians are equally adulterous but smarter about not getting caught"

I can pretty much guarantee you that female politicians are not equally adulterous. Women, for whatever reason, are turned on in general by power, money, fame, etc. in men, giving male politicians way more opportunity than the average man to cheat. Men, on the other hand, are generally indifferent to a woman's level of success as far as attractiveness is concerned; the only factor we really care about is physical beauty. Since most successful female politicians sacrificed their beauty long ago to stress, long work hours, and general effects of aging, they're not going to have long lines of men waiting to have flings with them.

Look at Eliot Spitzer's wife - she's an intelligent woman who has aged gracefully - a nine or ten among women her age. Nevertheless, she could not compete with even a young thing of average appearance who gave it up for money.

"Women, for whatever reason, are turned on in general by power, money, fame, etc."

Yeah, I guess some women are (I've seen it), but others know that more important qualities make for lasting happiness.

I have to disagree that the only factor men care about is physical beauty. I'm sure it's true of some of you (I've seen it), but I can't tell you how many times I've known a great guy (educated, loyal, funny, ambitious) who's fallen in love with and married a woman who's decidedly less than attractive by media standards.

As for Eliot Spitzer, he's gross. I don't care how powerful or successful he was, he had to pay for sex. I highly doubt that any civilian (including his wife) wanted to have sex with him.

For the most part, politicians (men or women)are just like the rest of us, and comments about trading beauty for something one is passionate about is demeaning as are the generalizations of women and power.

While I do not condone infidelity in any form, Elliot Spitzer's behavior came to light while he was in the process of shutting down all this Wall Street fraud that has left tens of thousands of Americans destitute or financially diminished.

Debbie Ford tackles the question of why people do things that harm themselves and their families here

If we want to be critical, it may be more appropriate to make fun of Jessica's weight or Maureen Dowd's plagarizing friend because Jessica did eat the food, and Maureen Dowd did choose to publish plagarized material under her own name.

Google Maureen Dowd and plagarism to learn what she did a mere six weeks ago.

Terry, I agree with you that other factors come into play in a loving relationship. Everyone is better off if the find someone with whom they share a playful rapport, deeper values, and a mutual respect. However, these are higher level components and do not play much of a role in raw physical attraction, which has to be present on some level. Furthermore, I kind of doubt people who have affairs think about them very rationally :(

First anon, whether my comments are demeaning has nothing to do with whether they are true.

You did get me curious, however, what the statistical likelihood of an exposed marital infidelity of a politician being female, assuming politicians ARE just like the average person. I used congress as my population, which has 524 male and 109 female voting congresspersons. The first statistics I found had a cheating rate of 28% for men and 14% for women. This would mean that 147 men and 16 women in congress have cheated on their spouse; if this is the case then an exposure in the press has less than a 1 in 10 chance of being a woman. If we assume my previous comments hold somewhat true, I would not be surprised if the rate for women was even lower.

Second anon, you should never make fun of ANY woman; they are all precious angels.

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